Could offshore drilling in Virginia dredge up toxic danger?

The Deadliness Below U.S. Didn't Dump Chemical Arms Off Just Its Own Shores

U.S. Army photos, Daily Press

A forklift shovels one-ton containers of mustard gas over the side of a barge somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean in 1964. The Army dumped millions of pounds of chemical warfare agent over decades in this way.

A forklift shovels one-ton containers of mustard gas over the side of a barge somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean in 1964. The Army dumped millions of pounds of chemical warfare agent over decades in this way. (U.S. Army photos, Daily Press)

Among them: how much oil and natural gas is beneath the Atlantic Ocean, and how a spill would affect the environment.

Perhaps the biggest uncertainty, one that has seldom been discussed publicly, is the chance that drillers will encounter chemical weapons, radioactive waste and artilllery dumped decades ago by the nation's military.

"There's no telling what you might run into out there," said Craig Williams, director of the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, a grass-roots citizens group. "The records are incomplete to say the least."

Five years ago, the Army released previously classified documents to the Daily Press about a chemical weapons-dumping program it ran from 1944 to 1970.

The documents revealed that the Army dumped into the sea 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents, 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste. There are at least 26 dumpsites that span 11 states, including Virginia and Maryland.

Details of what was dumped and where are sketchy, but Army records indicate there are five dumpsites north of the 2.9-million-acre zone Virginia set aside for drilling. The zone starts 50 miles off the coast and narrows into a triangle for at least another 100 miles out into the ocean.

The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which regulates offshore drilling, indefinitely delayed a lease-sale of the zone following the explosion April 20 aboard the Deepwater Horizon. The explosion killed 11 workers and opened a hole in the Gulf of Mexico bottom that is leaking an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil daily.

The service is moving forward with an environmental impact study of the Atlantic, from Delaware to central Florida, including Virginia's 2.9 million acres. The study will examine numerous issues, including drilling's potential effects to endangered species, marine mammals, and coastal wetlands.

Cheryl Irwin is a spokeswoman for the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logisitics at the Pentagon. She said in an e-mail that "pertinent information such as the location of active offshore military ranges and past military munitions disposal and former range activity will be provided by the Navy to the MMS as appropriate…"

The study could be finished as early as the middle of 2012, said Gary Goeke, chief of environmental assesment in service's New Orleans office. From there, the service may permit seismic testing — the process of setting off large airguns on the ocean surface and measuring the blast as it bounces off the ocean floor.

The process, last done in the Atlantic 30 years ago to no ill effects, helps analysts determine how much oil and natural gas is beneath the ocean.

The activity has gone on for decades in the gulf without releasing chemical warefare agents, including mustard gas and phosgene bombs the Army dumped off the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts from 1944 to 1946. Still, activists argue the sound waves are powerful enough to stir up radioactive waste and other chemicals lying dormant in the ocean.

"You don't have to wait to drill to disturb things," Williams said.

Casey Rowe, a biolgist with Minerals Management Service, said the service has been told of the dumpsites in the Atlantic. It hires contractors that use sonar and other devices to scour the ocean before using the airguns. The contractors should be able to identify any hazards, he said.

With a potential of having 10 wells per platform, drilling also poses risks, Williams said. How much risk would depend on how concentrated the drilling is, and how much the current may have moved the chemical weapons, he said.

Irwin said the Defense Department is conducting research into the dumpsites and that preliminary information suggests they do not pose an "imminent or substantial threat to public health, safety, or the environment."

For more science and environment news, visit the Daily Press blog, The Deadrise, at dailypress.com/deadrise or check facebook.com/deadrise.

Barges often were piled high with one-ton steel containers of mustard gas to be thrown into the ocean in the 1940s and 1950s. More than a dozen such as this were unloaded off the coast of South Carolina.

A special four-part Daily Press series looks at possibility of drilling for natural gas and oil off the coast of Virginia. Part 1: How would the environment be affected if a spill occurred off Virginia's coast? Part 2: Would drilling operations dredge up chemical and other weapons dumped in the...

Two cross-dressing men who were fired upon by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who had picked them up to "party" at a motel, police said Tuesday.

It's comes to no surprise to residents of the commonwealth that Virginia is growing. Like many fast-growing Southern states, Virginians appear to love sprawled-out cities and suburbs, according to recent 2014 U.S. Census estimates.

The Virginia is for Lovers Culinary Challenge sponsored by the state tourism office has been narrowed to two dishes: the Apple, Brie and Bacon Burger created by Horseshoe Restaurant in South Hill and the Five Fat Fried Chicken on the menu at Comfort in Richmond.